The invention relates to the field of Computer-Aided Design. More precisely, it concerns a computer-implemented method for defining a manufacturable garment, i.e. a garment which can be obtained by seaming together, by their edges, a finite number of developable (flattenable) panels, usually made of fabric or another suitable flexible material, e.g. leather. It also concerns a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) system, computer program product and a non-volatile computer-readable data-storage medium containing computer-executable instructions to cause a computer system to carry out such a method, as well as a method of manufacturing a garment.
The invention applies to the design of both garments to be manufactured in the real world and of realistic “virtual” garments for integration to virtual worlds, e.g. in video games or animated movies.
According to the conventional method of designing a garment, the designer starts from a mental or graphical representation of the garment worn by a model or a manikin; then he or she has to figure out and design a set of planar patterns which, when assembled, will yield the desired visual result. A prototype is then manufactured and, if necessary, the pattern design is corrected iteratively. This method is labor-intensive, lengthy and requires significant skill and experience from the designer.
Hereafter, the word “pattern” will designate a piece of fabric, leather or other flexible material suitable to be used to manufacture a garment. A garment is most often manufactured by assembling several patterns by their edges. Patterns are usually considered two-dimensional, as they are developable (they can lie flat on a plane) and their thickness is negligible (smaller by at least two orders of magnitude) over their other dimensions.